Paul1957

Some great titles here, from the Criterion forum:

While looking for something at imdb, I noticed that a number of titles including some classic film noirs from a Paramount catalogue are listed under Olive Films studio with DVDs to be released in 2010. Titles include:

Ansikte mot ansikte (Face to Face) (1976)
Once Is Not Enough (1975)
Fear Is the Key (1972)
Such Good Friends (1971)
Hannie Caulder (1971)
WUSA (1970)
Tropic of Cancer (1970)
Riot (1969)
Skidoo (1968)
Hurry Sundown (1967)
Promise Her Anything (1965)
Sands of the Kalahari (1965)
Harlow (1965)
Crack in the World (1965)
Where Love Has Gone (1964)
Escape from Zahrain (1962)
Summer and Smoke (1961)
On the Double (1961)
The Savage Innocents (1960)
The Mountain (1956)
Knock on Wood (1954)
Off Limits (1953)
My Favorite Spy (1951)
Appointment with Danger (1951)
Dark City (1950)
Union Station (1950)
Rope of Sand (1949)

I contacted Olive and their response was:

"The films will be released on dvd in and around September 2010. Please feel free to check back on our website or sign up for our eNewsletter to get updates on the exact release dates."

http://www.criterionforum.org/forum/...hp?f=4&t=10424

riotinmyskull

skidoo!!!! finally!!!!

NoirFan

Wow, Skidoo is a major surprise. I'll definitely be in for Dark City. I suppose it would be too much to hope Face to Face will be the 200-min cut.

dom56

Crack in the World finally coming to dvd.

Very well done disaster flick.

hasslein

RIOT !! That was #1 on my wish list!

Zen Peckinpah

Been wanting to see a LOT of these, and I'm sure I'll discover some of the ones I haven't heard of as being great too.

Paul1957

Olive Films commented at Home Theater Forum:

"Newly Remastered (HD Transfer) DVDs and and some cases BLU-RAY".

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/foru...ramount-titles

Geofferson

WUSA

Alan Smithee

Paramount has been doing new transfers of a lot of older movies for Amazon's Video On Demand service, including 2 I really want to buy on an actual video format, Little Darlings and Looking For Mr. Goodbar (well, I don't really know who did the transfers but Paramount still owns these movies so they had to get the OK from them somehow). Seems like Paramount doesn't want to release any more old movies on DVD even when they're doing new transfers, hope they at least let other companies pick them up.

stingermck

Hannie!!!

I can retire the DVD-R I made from a VHS copy.

Silverscreenvid

The best news is that there's still life in catalogue releases of second tier titles. I've been looking for Hannie, WUSA, and Kalahari for years, and I plan to buy a bunch of these just on general principles to show Paramount I support what they're doing.

pseudo

Some nice titles there. Haha for Skidoo, that movie is pretty embarrassing for all of the actors involved.... I'll probably buy it so I can throw away the poor-quality boot that I've had for years.

Norm de Plume

Glad to see Face to Face and Sands of the Kalahari. I have old boots I'll be happy to replace.

ianforcer

Not heard of any of those titles!

NoirFan

First wave on 7/13: Dark City, Union Station, Appointment with Danger and Crack in the World.
They're charging $24.99 list price for bare-bones catalog titles? I'm not sure how long these guys will stay in business.

Silverscreenvid

They'll stay in business as long as people keep convincing themselves they "have" to get these titles at $24.99 (actually a street price of about $17-20).

They don't care if people grumble and bitch when they buy, as long as they buy. Warner Archive is showing there is some sort of market for second tier titles at $20 apiece, so you can't blame these people for offering pressed titles at the same price. You can blame the people on this board and similar fans who rush to get the titles as soon as they're offered at a ridiculous price like that.

Alan Smithee

I'd still pay that much for a title I really wanted- most titles went for about that much when DVD first came out. People are just getting spoiled by the insanely low prices a lot of stuff sells for.

NoirFan

It's the high price combined with the lack of any special features that's so ridiculous. All of the titles in Fox's Noir series were $14.99 MSRP each, and all titles included commentary tracks. WB catalog titles, frequently including commentaries, featurettes, etc., were $19.99 MSRP. Olive is charging $5 or $10 more than that for bare-bones releases. $14.99 for a catalog title without extras? That's reasonable. $19.99, like MGM's abortive Noir series a few years back? A bit steep, but within the realms of acceptability. $24.99? Utterly absurd.
Exactly. This isn't 1999 anymore. You find me a single bare-bones catalog DVD released by a major studio in the last five years that had a $24.99 list-price and I'll eat my hat. And if you want to argue that sale prices will be lower, than go ahead and take the same discount off of the WB and Fox titles cited above, and we'll be right back where we started.

man*machine

And it's also not 2006 anymore and new 'pressed' catalog releases are now pretty much DEAD across the board from the major studios (Sony is doing a few last breaths of great-deals with theirs, but it probably won't last long). This is a whole new marketplace now because catalog titles just don't sell that well. There were some really good years there where prices were low and product was tops. We should look back and be thankful for those glorious days, but those days are gone now, so people need to just accept the new reality. If you want older titles, you're going to have to pay more than before - otherwise these movies will continue to rot away in the studios' vaults because the studios probably lost money on many of them they did over those good years and aren't anxious to continue losing more now. So all those mega-movie catalog studio box-sets with commentaries and extras at bargain prices are pretty much a dinosaur in the La Brea tar pits at this point.

I heard the Legend releases sold poorly and therefore they licensed no more and they probably took a bath on the whole deal. I hope Olive fares better and I do understand their price point. These independant companies also have to pay to license these films first, which puts them in the negative from the get-go. I'll support Olive on any title I'm interested in.

Silverscreenvid

I would love to get Hannie Caulder, WUSA, Sands of the Kalahari and a few others on the list. But I won't support Olive to the tune of $20 for barebones versions of those titles. I have about 2500 titles on DVD. I couldn't afford to get anywhere near that many if I opened my wallet every time a title I liked came out and forked over whatever some studio felt they were worth.

If Olive wants to price those titles at what I think is a reasonable price, I'll get them. If not, I've spent the last thirty years of my life without seeing those movies and I can spend a few more without them. I've got plenty of other things to watch.

man*machine

And that's exactly why the major studios are hardly releasing any pressed catalog titles anymore. Even the minor fanbase of these older films apparently don't want to pay what it would cost the studios to produce these discs. Why bother when everyone complains and most don't buy. Sour grapes from fans don't equal dollars in the bank, and the studios aren't charity organizations. Glad you got tons of movies to watch. I do, too, and I still welcome more. I'll probably be dead before I get to all of them, but that's just another nail in the coffin for catalog releases these days - there's already SO MUCH out there, that the majority of fans, even big film buffs, shrug their shoulders at new catalog releases nowadays because they are priced too high. Fans scream and complain and don't support so studios say, "why do it anymore?" They don't need to put these films out. They make way more millions on their new theatrical blockbusters to even bother with this stuff. Pretty sad.

Hu Phan

I think ManMachine is a little off in his reckoning of the low sales of classic films. They do sell well, but the problems is that there is little distinction in sales figures between an elaborate special edition and a bare bones release of a pre 1980s title. And sadly, little distinction between that and a burned DVD-R.

The DVD-R is of course more profitable as it can be created on demand, does not require warehouses of inventory or extensive dealings with middle men. Hence, the DVD-R route is pursued, not because it is a better product or any change in sales levels but because classic titles sell a certain pre-identifiable number irrespective of features, restoration or the medium of production.

From the few sales figures I have been able to glean the average Warner Archives DVD-R sells in similar quantities to their previous catalog releases, it is simply the profit margin per title that differs.

I would suspect that most Warner Achrive titles sell c. 20,000 copies within eight weeks of release which is comparable to 'real' dvd's.

g

How do you figure that a warner archive title sells 20,000 in 8 weeks? I highly doubt this.

Dr. Mantle

Really interested in Skidoo.

Silverscreenvid

With the exception of some Disney titles and a few name titles like The African Queen, catalogue films do not sell well. A movie like Leap Year or Tooth Fairy may have been total garbage, and garbage that didn't perform all that well at the box office to boot, but now that it's out on DVD, every Blockbuster in the country will stock a hundred copies or more and every Redbox in the country will have dozens of copies. Add to that the fact that every Wal-mart and Best Buy will carry it, and Netflix will be stocking a bunch of them in their warehouses.

How many copies of Sands of the Kalahari will wind up in Blockbusters or Redboxes? None. Netflix will stock a handful of copies to allow for the diverse taste of its audiences, but you won't see it at Walmart and probably not at most Best Buys (it may turn up at a Barnes and Noble). The only market for these Olive titles will be online.

Leap Year will outsell all these Olive titles combined by 100-1. That's just the way the market is set up. I also think that the only reason you get "special editions" (or releases at all) for some of these catalogue titles is because someone takes an interest in the movie and helps produce the extras. Lonely Are the Brave would not be out on DVD if Steven Spielberg and Kirk and Michael Douglas hadn't pushed it and contributed to the featurette that accompanied it. Extras cost money, and the money isn't always reflected in increased sales.